Special Report: Building The Case

It was early in the investigation, but already the FBI was getting on Vince Fumo's nerves.

In a typically blunt e-mail, he wrote to a top aide in 2004 that a delicate part of his anatomy had just been "busted by my 2 friendly female FBI agents."

Then he cursed them.

His aide replied: "I do not like those people. Long live the realm of Fumo-world! :-)"

Now former State Sen. Fumo stands convicted of scores of counts of corruption in a $4 million fraud, his aide has lost his job, and Fumo-world is a smoking ruin.

Relentlessly civil, but also downright relentless, FBI Agents Vicki Humphreys and Kathleen T. McAfee scrutinized Home Depot receipts and analyzed American Express card bills, tallied up toll slips and tracked down yacht captains, all to build a case that everyone told them they could never construct.

They were joined by Assistant U.S. Attorneys John J. Pease and Robert A. Zauzmer. It was Pease who took Mensa member Fumo apart on cross-examination. Zauzmer was the unflappable strategist whose methodically searing closing argument sealed Fumo's fate.

While Monday's verdict turned out to be a resounding triumph for the government, McAfee, 54, and Humphreys, 40, say the case looks like a slam dunk only in retrospect.

"No one cooperated with us easily," McAfee said. "Not one person."

Over and over, she said, witnesses told them, "You'll never get him."

Said Humphreys: "This was an uphill climb."

In an interview last week, Pease, 41, and Zauzmer, 48, said that during the investigation they had to overcome an ongoing cover-up and a fierce counterattack from one of Philadelphia's most formidable defense lawyers, Richard A. Sprague.

The overarching problem, they all agreed, was that Fumo's confederates were reluctant to turn against him out of fear, loyalty, or a simple desire to protect their sizable paychecks.

"It was a tough investigation because of the obstacles, the difficulty of piercing the Fumo inner circle," Pease said.

By the time they were done, the feds had marshaled as prosecution witnesses a wronged former Fumo girlfriend, his estranged son-in-law, his state-paid private eye, and his tax-evading political consultant.

In a final twist, Sprague, who had a falling-out with Fumo, also testified for the prosecution.